Summer Reading: Dr. Gaiman or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Post 9/11 America

Three things.

That are kind of four things.

Kind of first thing: I saw Public Enemies, starring Misters Depp and Bale. The director has done something really incredible. He took the two sexiest, coolest guys in Hollywood, put them in the coolest setting for a film, (Gangsters) and made the dullest thing I have ever seen in my life. Don't go see it. If you have to, watch it online. Just don't support this atrocity by giving it money.

Real first thing: I just watched Let The Right One In. It's this Swedish vampire movie and to say that it is beautiful isn't doing it justice. It is for real the most gorgeous thing. Restored my faith in movies, art, and vampires. Stephenie Meyer can go die.

Second thing: The Dead Weather CD, Horehound. I might just be in love with Jack White and everything he touches, but this album rocks my socks off. The end.

Third thing: I finished American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Totally awesome. It's a great narrative, and you can read into it a million different ways. (English major yay) Personally I'm diggin' the globalization allegory, but it's an incredible barrage of ideas and a wonderful straight story too. Good stuff, this is what art should be.

In conclusion, I thought that what I said about Ms. Meyer was kind of harsh, but then I remembered Twilight and no it's not.

Summer Reading: The best of all possible worlds?

This summer I decided to try and read one book a week. Not going so well. I mean, I've read five, but my book a week diet was silly, cause I've got work and other commitments and video games and sleep and sitting around wondering to myself "What should I do? I'm bored." and apparently no discipline.

Tsk tsk.

But I did knock down like, five in a month and a half. That's pretty good. Bright side, yeah? And I'm halfway done with American Gods by our friend Neil Gaiman. I'm three behind right now, but I'm catching up.

Whoo.

Lolita blew my mind. It is one of the saddest, most beautiful things I have ever read. Gave me chills. Made me think a lot about the nature of love and things like that.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time was cute. Enjoyable and light, but as our friend Milan Kundera tells us, lightness isn't always for the best. Regardless though, I liked it. Very charming. The kid in it likes Sherlock Holmes and made me remember the good times I had with our friend Sir Arthur back in the day. Those stories gave me a taste for surprise endings.

Phantom Tollbooth gave me some memories back that I had lost a while ago. It was punny and about the importance of education and made me feel like a little kid.

Candide now, Candide was heavy, and Mr. Kundera warns about this too. Just a little adventure about this little guy and his adventures. With heavy philosophy and satire in the middle, like a literary jelly doughnut. Our friend Voltaire blasts the overly optimistic or cynical, and asks us all why we don't just cultivate our gardens.

And finally, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I read it while babysitting the greenroom in Sundin Music Hall and had to try so hard not to cry in front of the piano tuner. This Franco-Czech fellow starts out by letting us know he thinks Nietzsche got it wrong, and things only happen once. And I gotta apologize to my man Friedrich 'cause Kundera makes a whole lotta sense.

So anywho, I'm processing all these ideas and I couldn't help but wonder, once we've accepted that things only happen once, can we really just go and start gardening? Or must we busy ourselves with sowing all the wild oats we've missed along the way?

I've also been watching too much Sex and the City. I should stop doing that.